Yep, the government sponsored “Public Option” for health insurance is alive and well and going strongly into it’s place in american life because you all elected Obama. Many states are still fighting this option and all of Obamacare but with him in office for the next four years so much damage will be done that eventually all the states will have to give in. the following article explains it well. BB

The Public Option: Alive and Well in Obamacare

Thought the “public option” was dead? Think again. Chief among the most dangerous provisions in Obamacare is the creation of government-sponsored national health plans, which are, in effect, another embodiment of the public option.

Through its multi-year implementation, the law steadily evolves into a national single-payer health care system.

Here’s the background: In 2014, the Office of Personnel Management (OPM), the small agency that runs the federal civil service, will administer at least two nationwide health plans to compete against private insurance. OPM will be responsible for negotiating the new health plans’ medical-loss ratio, profit margins, and premiums.

The OPM-sponsored plans will automatically qualify to compete against private health plans in the new state exchanges and thus will not be subject to the same qualifications and standards outlined in Obamacare for private plans in the exchanges. OPM must contract with an already existing large insurer, because such a plan must be offered in 60 percent of states in year one.

These government-sponsored plans will be the only plans that can compete nationwide under a separate set of government rules. Moreover, such plans would have a clear advantage over private plans in the exchanges. Heritage health policy expert Bob Moffit wrote nearly two years ago:

In effect, Congress is creating a special set of plans, governed by special rules, in a closed national “market.” Instead of fair competition with private health plans, Congress is sponsoring the equivalent of a national monopoly.

At a Heritage event in 2010, former OPM officials also warned against the expansion of OPM’s power and the likelihood that these government-sponsored plans would be substitutes for the public option.

Dan Blair, deputy director of OPM from 2002 to 2006, saw the program “as nothing but a placeholder for the public option, and, as time goes on, I think that we will see the program evolve more into the public health insurance option that was originally proposed.”

In addition, Don Devine, director of OPM from 1981 to 1985, warned, “This is incredible power to give somebody over the health care of the people of the United States. As Dan Blair said, this is clearly the substitute for the public option under another name.”

The uneven playing field will be coupled with projected premium increases for private plans in the individual market. If OPM can set lower premiums than private plans, consumers would be more likely to enroll in the government-sponsored OPM plans. With coverage in private insurance decreasing, OPM would gain power in the market.

Of course, the crowd-out of private insurance was exactly what Obamacare’s original public option (a government health plan) was always intended to do. Moffitexplains:

Original proponents of a “robust public option…viewed it as an ideal vehicle to undercut private health plans and ensure a rapid evolution toward a single-payer system. With the creation of this “OPM alternative,” advocates of a “robust public option” have a second chance to crowd out private health insurance and secure their original policy goals.

Even Obamacare’s champions acknowledge the “public option” potential of the OPM plans. In an oddly titled blog for The Washington Post, “No, the public option is not back from the dead,” Sarah Kliff, trying to argue that the OPM plans are not actual public options, quotes an Obamacare advocate, Tim Jost, saying, “If you have a multi-state plan that offers some different benefit package, it could undercut the market.”

Kliff goes on to further undermine her own argument, saying, “The federal government will negotiate with those two insurers over how much they charge and the benefits they cover. Being a nationwide plan that has the potential to deliver a large number of members, it might get some leverage to negotiate lower prices—just like a public option would.” (Sure the Feds will “negotiate! Just like they negotiate for lower drug prices for their Senior Drug Program—remember that?> and just how the politicians negotiate wages and benefits for the public sector unions! And if you believe that I will sell you a lovely bridge in New York really cheap. BB)

Obamacare’s OPM-sponsored plans are a main ingredient in the health law’s rapidly expanding regulatory regime.

4 Responses to "More on the government Americans voted for: Obamacare"

Yes Roch Darlin’ unfortunately at this time of my life I am on Medicare. In other words I am on the public welfare rolls and the struggling backs of the young and helping to bring down my country. In 1965 when Johnson pushed thru Medicare for all people over 65 when less than 40% of the elderly really needed some help and Medicaid was available to them I was against this horrid program. I was only 24 but I could see how bad this was going to be for the country because it was evident the government could not run any program well. The Post Office was a mess then too! I wrote letters and begged Congressmen to use their good sense and help just those who might need help. Instead the politicians made a deal with the insurance companies to insure all people over age 65 or none at all. Then we had 4 decades of double digit inflation in medical costs! Just exactly what some sane humans predicted.

My husband and I both worked and EARNED our medical coverage. My husband served his country for 20 years and thru 2 wars to earn medical coverage for himself and his spouse for life (Tricare). A plan we both liked and felt we had earned, but were forced to go on the government dole at age 65. I am ashamed of taking this welfare but find I have no choice because I can not afford to purchase my own insurance—–In other words, I can not compete with what the government is willing to pay the insurance companies! If there had been no Medicare program medical costs would not have soared out of sight! Anything the government gets into becomes a cash cow for those offering the service and a huge debt for the tax payers.

Now Roch please I will ask you one more time: GET TO HELL OFF MY SITE. I DON’T LIKE YOU AND YOUR SMART ASS ATTITUDE. Sincerely, Brenda Bowers

If the government hadn’t gotten into the health care business the insurance rates would not have gone up to the point where they are today. That is the point! My grandparents had their own insurance and didn’t need Medicare because the costs were within their means and reasonable and so were the doctors fees and everything else having to do with health care. If the government had stayed out of it and helped only those who needed help then the costs would have risen normally with normal inflation instead of the double digit inflation that was after Medicare and the government got involved. I can not compete with the government! I could very well have been able to care for my own needs if normal inflation had been my only competition. I buy my own auto and auto insurance because the government kept it’s nose out of my auto insurance, I was able to buy my own homes and home owners insurances because the government kept its nose out of the housing market until the 1990’s when all hell broke out and then housing prices went thru the roof literally and eventually led to the big crash we had in 2008. The government makes a mess of everything they get into, period!
An yes, I am very very very ungrateful for any so called “help” the government has forced on me! But now I have to take it or have no medical care at all. BB